This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Toronto opera premieres take us flying, partying and to the brink of nuclear destruction

Hawksley’s Workman’s The God That Comes and Soundstreams’ Airline Icarus open June 3 and Tapestry Opera’s Shelter begins June 12.

Hawksley Workman plays all the roles in The God That Comes, created by him and Christian Barry. (Tristan Brand)

Director Tim Albery, set and costume designer Teresa Przybylski, and composer and music director Brian Current sit on the giant airplane wings that make up part of the set of Airline Icarus. (David Cooper / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Angry gods who mess with humanity figure prominently in three operas getting their Toronto premieres in June.

These made-in-Canada productions mine the topic of technology’s impact on humanity and feature unusual “environments”: the cabin of an airplane, a basement cabaret club, people glowing from nuclear radiation.

In what is being billed as a minifestival, the three theatres involved have joined in a collaborative marketing campaign and are playfully referring to themselves as Luminato Fringe as they overlap with the 10-day arts festival.

“It’s like real estate: location, location, location!” says Lawrence Cherney, artistic director of Soundstreams, who expects audience crossover with the Luminato Festival, which he has worked with in the past.

“Very few new Canadian operas large or small are performed in Toronto,” says Cherney.

Also on June 3, rock musician Hawksley Workman stars in The God ThatComes, a one-man show at Tarragon Theatre. It is the adults-only story of the god Bacchus — the lover of wine, sex and sensual enjoyments — in which Workman plays all of the roles and instruments. It ends June 29.

Tapestry Opera’sShelter, about the birth of the atomic age and the potentially destructive power of technology, is a modern version of the story of Prometheus. He steals fire from the gods and suffers the consequences (his liver is torn out every day by eagles) in the production running from June 12 to 15 at the Berkeley St. Theatre.

All of these works are by Canadian artists, some of whom laboured years to finalize their productions. Shelter began almost a decade ago. While Shelter and The God That Comes have been seen in other Canadian cities, this is Airline Icarus’s world premiere.

AIRLINE ICARUS

Director Tim Albery decided to turn the seating area of the Daniels Spectrum into the cabin of an airplane for Icarus with the audience watching from the stage.

He and stage designer Teresa Przybylski set about recreating air travel bits and pieces from the luggage handler slinging suitcases to the pre-made meals and oxygen masks that fall from the ceiling. These “embellishments” include Przybylski’s costumes for the passengers, stewards and pilot, which would pass muster at any airport.

At the rear of the theatre, large, metal, birdlike wings soar above the seats.

Albery says light is used to create the effect of waves in crash scenarios being played out in people’s minds.

Disasters of any kind are a reminder of the limitations of technology, says Albery.

“It is quite exciting doing a production about high technology that is low tech. This is about imagination,” he says.

Composer Brian Current got the idea from a Korean airline that disappeared in 1983 and, later, the explosion of space shuttle Columbia.

“The people on these just disappear from our lives,” he said.

SHELTER

Librettist Julie Salverson and composer Juliet Palmer have been working on Shelter for almost a decade. But Salverson’s “lifelong obsession with the atomic situation” began when she was quite young.

Salverson has included one character in Shelter who represents a real person: German scientist Lise Meitner, who discovered nuclear fission. (She chose not to work on the Manhattan Project, says Salverson.)

This character appears throughout the story, which follows a couple who give birth to the atomic age in the form of baby Hope, whom they hide for fear of her power. Lighting and makeup create the radiation effects in the play where everyone positively glows.

Hope ultimately flies away with a pilot, heading toward Hiroshima.

Palmer’s music draws on many sources from Brahms to big bands of the 1940s. She also includes music influenced by Japanese all-girl bands.

The New Zealand native describes Hope “as the bomb.” “Her parents have stumbled onto this power that they don’t know how to handle.”

Palmer was a bit taken aback when she saw the first production in Edmonton in 2012.

Director Keith Turnbull says there are comic elements to the opera and he studied cartoons for his portrayal of suburbia. The actor playing Meisner participates much like actor Bob Hoskins as the only real person in the cartoon film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, he says.

Projections create the opera’s universe, including the final scene of hurtling through the sky, bomb on board.

THE GOD THAT COMES

Workman has taken his one-man show across Canada and to Europe, but this is its first appearance in Toronto. Directed and designed by Christian Barry, it is a 2b Theatre production.

One element that has stayed the same, no matter where it played, is the cabaret setup in the theatre where rows of chairs are replaced with tables appropriate for an underground club, complete with drinks.

The story centres on a king in a tug of wills with the god of earthly delights, Bacchus, says Workman. While the king tries to maintain order, his people sneak up to Bacchus’s domain to drink too much wine and have sex.

When the king discovers his mother has visited these parties, he dresses up as a woman to see for himself. Workman says the king likes the soft, feminine clothing (signified by a feather boa around Workman’s neck).

He likens the king to many of today’s leaders “gurgling anger, looking for a focus.” But, there’s another side to them too, he says, “where we see a sad little guy, mostly fragile.”

Workman takes the show to Edinburgh, Scotland, next and there are more bookings down the road.

Barry calls the god “a shape shifter” who appears in different forms and says the opera “is a celebration of life, a celebration of humanity.”

They intend the experience to be interactive, giving audience members a chance to rub elbows, see the reaction on other people’s faces and respond to the musical performance before them.

It is recommended for people 19 or older as there is adult content.

“I am surprised we haven’t shocked more people,” Barry says. “The media and critical response has been positive all the way.”

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com